


don't settle

by kidlightnings (revolver)



Category: Fallout 4
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Angst and Humor, F/M, First Kiss, Partnership, Robot/Human Relationships
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-06-02
Updated: 2019-06-02
Packaged: 2020-04-06 21:43:37
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,199
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19071256
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/revolver/pseuds/kidlightnings
Summary: Nick didn’t like the idea of Nora joining the Agency. Not at first.





	don't settle

**Author's Note:**

  * For [tuesday](https://archiveofourown.org/users/tuesday/gifts).



Nick didn’t like the idea of Nora joining the Agency. Not at first.

He especially didn’t like the idea of it when he saw her  _ try _ .

He thought to himself, circuits firing under the fragmented coverings of his head, that this was a woman out of her own time who could do, truly,  _ anything _ . He believed.

Nick believed when she gunned down Kellogg. He believed even more as she lead them across dead zones. Across the Glowing Sea. As, against his better judgement, he stepped onboard a vessel of soldiers who wanted him scrapped. But Nick believed. He believed, and he trusted, in bits and bytes, accumulating evidence for her, for the drive in her, every piece of proof that Nora was someone he could, he desperately  _ would _ follow until he ceased to function. However long that would be.

So, Nick didn’t like the idea of Nora joining the Agency. Nora had bigger things to worry about. Nick loved the Agency, but as he crossed the threshold of it, it was small potatoes compared to what Nora did, a single-woman army who he’d seen with his own eyes reduce the most fearsome beasts in the wasteland to ribbons. She would not be stopped, and he wouldn’t have her stop here if he had his way about it.

Months passed without word from her, but plenty of word of her, until the haggard evening she stepped through that door again.

“Hey, Nick,” she said so casually. “You hiring?”

“I’d say you’re overqualified.”

\----

Ellie brings a flat cola and a case file. Nick takes the case file, Nora, the cola. She looks the same as the day she sent him home except for her eyes. They’re tired. Her posture isn’t, nothing else says anything except that she came here on a mission. Just her eyes. It’s like looking into the earliest models’ faces, that exhaustion of worn down wiring that can barely glow anymore.

Nick doesn’t ask. He doesn’t need to. Nora moves in slow motion to rest her elbows on her knees.

“I’ve gotten to the bottom of everything else.. Maybe this will be something where every once in a while, I’ll like what I find.”

Nick tilts his head down, eyes inscrutable behind the brim of his hat. “Maybe sometimes you will. A lot of the time, you still won’t.”

Nora doesn’t respond for a long while. “I’ll like it more than I have,” she finally says, downs the last of the cola.

\----

Nora is competent, because of course she is. Their solve rate is up, everything from missing kittens, to who’s been attacking settlement supply trains, to their foray into an attic to find out what’s causing  _ this goddamned racket _ every night.

Nora pushes a box aside, holding her breath at the dust that flies up into the air.

“Find anything?” Nick calls from behind rotting clothes and silk flower. It was a maze of pre-war rubbish, dust, and, Nora was surprised to not have found yet a single living creature.

“Nothing, it’s like a tomb up here.”

They’d looked for tracks first, found nothing beyond the most dusted-over imprints of paws.

Nora stood, satisfied that there was nothing behind any of the boxes.

“Nick, you don’t think it’s just,” she started, then stumbled over the edge of the trapdoor. It slammed shut with a bang from where it had been propped open.

He chuckled, a dry sort of grind of laughter.

“Well, now we’re what’s living in the attic.”

Nora huffed, but laughed despite herself, tried to work her fingers into the gap. She couldn’t find room to get any purchase on it.

“Here, let me take a look,” he said, wiggling the exposed metal of his bare hand. He drew near, knelt alongside her.

Metal scraped aged wood. Nora looked in frustration at the raw holes that had once held a handle, strap, something, onto the back.

“Who tears off the handle?” she asked.

“Someone who doesn’t want the raccoons inviting themselves to tea,” Nick quipped.

She watched as he was able to get the thin metal under the edge, but couldn’t fasten against anything to pull.

“Well, looks like we’re looking for a prybar, or waiting until they come to let us out.”

“My favorite case yet, the mystery of how to get the door unstuck,” Nora said, sitting back, hands falling uncomfortably into the thick dust. She stood again and started picking through the kipple for anything long, slim, and able to jimmy into the gap.

“It was a synth in the attic all along,” Nick grumbled, doing the same. “And you said you’d like what you found.”

Nora laughed. “I said I’d like what I found  _ more _ .” She clapped her hand on his back. “Wouldn’t mind finding you living in the attic. Wouldn’t mind if you invited yourself to tea.”

“If you like cleaning off rust from old steel,” he said.

Nora took his bare hand into hers. “Someone should.”

“What, and look like I think I’m too good for this wasteland?”

They both laughed.

“But, really, Nick,” Nora started, “You should let someone take a look sometime. I can’t have my boss seizing up someday.”

“Boss, huh? Here I was thinking Nick and Nora’s Detective Agency had a nice ring to it. Have to get the sign remade, but nothing we can’t handle.”

Nora smiled, looked to the side. “Nick, not everything can be a joke.”

Nick pushed himself into her field of view. “Not a joke, has there been a case we haven’t worked together?”

“Case of where all those brahmin were going,” she said, cheekily.

“Because I was working it from the other end, and as it happens, sometimes, super mutants  _ do _ go in for ranching.”

“Fine, fine, got me there,” she said, raising her hands. “You sure about it? Wouldn’t be the first time I gave up on something.”

The silence stretched on at her admission.

“There’s cases.. Then there’s-” Nick started, but didn’t finish. “You didn’t give up. You cut your losses.”

Nora looked down. “He was my son.”

“Was. This wasteland changes everyone. Everything.”

His hand stirred in hers, and she grasped it unconsciously. A twitch went through his chassis.

“I guess it does,” she said. Her mind flashed back to Nate, and she pushed the feeling down into the pit of her stomach. “You’re the most unchanging among us.”

The cracking synthetic around Nick’s mouth pulled into a grim facsimile of a smile. “Guess I am, a relic from a time neither of us can let go of.”

Nora’s fingers tightened around his, the metal digging in almost painfully. “Don’t have to. I’d- I’d like it. Being partners.”

She could have imagined it, but to her eyes, Nick’s seemed to glow a little brighter in the gloom.

“Maybe- another kind, too,” she said, voice a little lower.

“Don’t think that’s allowed,” Nick chuckled.

“I won’t tell the Brotherhood if you won’t.”

He laughed. “They can eat my hat.”

She laid a hand on it, tipped it back to see more of his face. “Partners?”

“Partners.”

Nick had been alive for over a hundred years. He could finally admit, he supposed, that he’d had his first kiss.


End file.
